I don't engage in ice fishing and have no plans to do so. But I do have a couple of questions about it, since our new drive to town in Maine goes by a lake where they ice fish. In Michigan there is a lot of ice fishing but it's colder there, and not so much sun in the winter, I am finding. Here in Maine it is five degrees now, but it was 38 yesterday and bright, and we are in the mountains, so there is a big shift in temperature during the day.
Anyway, we drive by these lakes and there are out there with their shanties, but you can see the melting occurring. It is kind of terrifying. In Michigan there would be a certain day on Lake Michigan when "the ice went out", very dramatic, and it moved out--but this is an inland lake, and I know it will ice faster than Lake Michigan, for sure. But there are all these old guys out there (by which I mean older than me, by appearances) looking really hearty and I am thinking any one of them goes through that ice they have maybe 2 minutes and they are dead of hypothermia.
So how do they know when it is safe, and how do they know when it is not safe? Because I am seeing a lot of ice with melting signs that I would not go near from my ice skating days. I would never have let my kids out on ice that looked like that, either.
How do they know it is safe at any given time?